Goodbye Falkenburg

Fantastic Plastic;
2010

Find it at:

Emergent rock bands are bound to be measured against their influences, their environment, or, in the case of Race Horses, a combination of both. The quartet is based in Cardiff, Wales, and their bilingual music puts a whimsical spin on UK traditions ranging from music hall and psychedelia to glam rock and post-punk. So any discussion of Race Horses will inevitably lead back to equally warped Welsh forbears like Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and Super Furry Animals. But with Gorky's having disbanded in 2006, and the Super Furries continuing to mutate far beyond their psych-pop origins, it's more constructive to view Race Horses not as imitators but as rightful heirs to the Welsh Class-of-1996 legacy. Their wonderful debut album, Goodbye Falkenburg, certainly proves they're up to the task.

What's most striking about the record is that Race Horses never let their grandiose ambitions get in the way of energy and urgency. The album's sonic accoutrements-- reversed guitar solos, toreador trumpets, radio static, phaser effects-- propel the songs along rather than weigh them down. Race Horses could not be a more aptly named group: Goodbye Falkenburg charges out of the gate with three of its most engaging tracks, instantly establishing the band's sly, cheeky sense of humor: the suggestive boy-meets-girl courtship of "Cake" climaxes with a simple, innocent request for the titular dessert, and when frontman Meilyr Jones says he wants to be a "pony" on the Roxy Music-styled track of the same name, he's not owning up to some escapist fantasy so much as calling himself an ass ("I want to be the one to sit beside you/ I want to be the one you lie to").

By stacking the most obvious singles up front, Race Horses ease you into Goodbye Falkenburg's more bizarro turns. Even though it barely breaches the three-minute mark, "Cacen Mamgu" presents a bewilderingly frantic procession of glitter-rock riffs, stop-start change-ups, backward-loop effects and Welsh football chants. But perhaps not wanting to add another layer of inscrutability to Falkenburg's more cluttered compositions, Jones generally saves his Welsh-language performances for the album's most straight-faced and affecting moments-- in particular "Glo Ac Oren", a gorgeous, Gorky's-esque piano ballad that showcases Race Horses' songwriting fortitude in the absence of their usual studio trickery or campy delivery.

When they first emerged in the mid 90s, Gorky's and the Super Furries were unfairly lumped in and/or judged against the dominant Britpop of the day-- and often written off as wackaloon eccentrics as a result. But Race Horses have emerged in more favorable circumstances, with spiritual kin like Wild Beasts and Los Campesinos! already bending ears on both sides of the Atlantic toward flamboyant and erudite UK art-pop. With any luck, Race Horses will score the victory lap for this absurdity-is-the-new-sincerity movement.